


sometimes (i find it hard to believe)

by shineyma



Series: before you fall [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Rewrite, F/M, Season/Series 01, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 13:10:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7223578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grant Ward's soulmate is a beautiful, brilliant scientist whom he has absolutely no hope of turning to HYDRA. The fact that this is not his biggest problem really says a lot.</p><p>[[This is a revision/rewrite of the original fic, which you can find <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1854637/chapters/3989677">here</a>.]]</p>
            </blockquote>





	sometimes (i find it hard to believe)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [sometimes (i find it hard to believe)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1854637) by [shineyma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma). 



> Okay, so. Obviously I've left y'all hanging on a cliff FOREVER, which I very sincerely regret. I wrote a whole thing about my reasons for rewriting [here](http://shineyma.tumblr.com/post/139495677107/regarding-the-before-you-fall-series), but in short: I really dislike the earlier chapters of _sometimes_ , and that makes it impossible to work on the final one. There are a lot of dropped threads and poorly handled ideas in the original _sometimes_ , and a lot of things I wanted to follow up on that I kind of abandoned. I just CANNOT keep the final chapter in continuity with the earlier ones when the earlier ones are so....that.
> 
> So! In February, I embarked on a rewrite. I started by replacing [counting down](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1848691) with its rewritten version, and fully intended to just replace the existing chapters of _sometimes_ with new ones, but for a variety of reasons, I've decided instead to post the rewrites as a separate fic. The original will be left as-is to stand as a testament to...something. How far I've come, maybe?
> 
> One final note: I know a lot of my _sometimes_ fans aren't wild about how I write Grant the rest of the time, so rest assured: this Grant isn't gonna take a turn for the dark/crazy. I'm trying to make his character more consistent (I really jumped all over the place in the original), but at the heart of him, he remains unchanged...and so does the ending. I'm not intending to change the destination, here--just make the journey a bit better.
> 
> Okay! I think that's it. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

So Grant is standing in the cargo bay, and he might be staring at his soulmate like an idiot, but his mind is racing with plans and contingencies…and maybe even a little bit of panic.

He’s read two different psych profiles on Jemma Simmons, and suddenly, every single word of both is seared into his mind like a brand.

Her SHIELD profile says that she’s brilliant, dedicated, enthusiastic about her work, and fiercely loyal to those she deems worthy—namely, Leopold Fitz and SHIELD as a whole. It says that she’s fascinated by puzzles, that she becomes completely absorbed in her work to the detriment of her manners, and names her as a potential security risk because she’s completely incapable of deception.

HYDRA’s profile of her is simpler: it identifies her as a risk because she is firm in her moral convictions and far too perceptive by half.

Staring down at her, still reeling from the unfamiliar warmth in his chest, he really can’t _help_ but panic.

He has _no idea_ what to do with this.

There’s no way they’ll be able to keep this a secret, not with the very visible evidence of their meeting attached to Simmons’—to Jemma’s—wrist. Not with the gaping Fitz as a witness. Not with Jemma herself, a barely field-rated scientist who won’t see any reason to keep meeting her soulmate quiet.

They’re going to have to report to Coulson that they’re soulmates, and that could be a problem. Soulmates aren’t allowed to go into the field together—and for good reason. The soul bond will interfere with their priorities, will influence them to place each other’s safety above everything else, including the mission.

( _Missions_. His purpose here is twofold, and the second one—the secret one—is so much more important than anything else. That’s another reason to be worried; he can’t allow his soulmate to distract him from saving John’s life.)

Coulson’s psych profiles say he’s been a little reckless since coming back from the dead, but even he’s not crazy enough to keep a pair of newly introduced soulmates on the same field team. So either Grant gets taken off the team, which will completely ruin John’s _entire plan_ , or Jemma does, and that...

It should be a good thing, he thinks. Have his soulmate taken off his team and sent back to the lab, where she'll be out of the line of fire and he can go about this deep cover mission without worrying about her, about her safety and what she thinks of him—without worrying about the fact that he _can’t_ be himself with her, not after he played the stick-in-the-mud for Hill and Coulson—and the risk throwing herself into the field puts her at.

But he knows she won't go back to the lab. He knows, from the watch John has kept on this team as it formed, that it was Jemma’s idea to go into the field in the first place, that she talked Fitz into it and basically dragged him along with her.

If she gets taken off Coulson's team, she won't be going back to the lab. She'll be joining another team, somewhere else, somewhere he can't keep an eye on her and make sure she's safe. Can he really trust his soulmate’s safety to another specialist—a specialist he won’t even get to choose?

He shouldn't be worrying about this. He's known her for thirty seconds and he has plans, a purpose, that a soulmate will only get in the way of. He has his orders, and they have nothing to do with Jemma Simmons and the way she's staring up at him ( _way_ up, she's fucking tiny, and he actually finds it _adorable_ , what the hell, no one told him finding your soulmate makes you lose your mind) with hope and shock and a little bit of tentative happiness.

But he spent six years carrying her on his wrist, keeping her as a beacon of hope—of possibility—and ten years mourning the loss of that beacon. The idea of her was a light in dark times, an extra bit of strength that got him through his worst moments. Looking down at her, finally, after a _lifetime_ of waiting…he wants her.

He wants to talk to her, to learn everything about her directly from the source instead of reading it in a file. He wants to tell her everything about himself—his _real_ self. (After all these years of wondering which version of him she’d prefer, he finds, in the moment, that he can’t stand the idea of introducing her to a lie. He wants her to know the real him.) He wants to find out if she really is his other half, if this woman who was raised in lecture halls and labs can understand a survivor like him.

He wants her here. He wants her beside him, within his sight, where he can protect her like he promised himself he would so long ago.

And that want—he doesn’t know whether it’s just him, or if he’s already being influenced by the soul bond, or if maybe he’s being influenced by _her_ , by her wide eyes and the look on her face, but he doesn’t care.

Whether it’s down to him or her or the soul bond, it doesn’t matter. He made a promise. He’s going to keep it.

The sound of an approaching vehicle pulls him out of his thoughts, and he tears his eyes away from his soulmate to see Coulson drive up in a classic convertible. Behind him, Fitz loudly hurries over to stand next to Jemma.

“A specialist?” he hisses. “Your soulmate is a bloody _specialist_?”

Grant doesn’t hear Jemma’s reply; he’s focused on Coulson, who, after telling one of the ground crew not to touch ‘Lola,’ turns to look at him. At his raised eyebrows, Grant realizes what a strange picture it must be, the three of them just standing in the cargo bay next to a pile of luggage.

“Something wrong, Agent Ward?” Coulson asks.

“Not…exactly, sir,” Grant says, and hesitates.

He needs to get Coulson to agree to keep him and Jemma on the team together, but Coulson needs to think it was his idea, which is a problem. There actually _was_ a class at the Academy that covered how to handle meeting your soulmate for the first time on an undercover op, but it didn’t include what to do when the undercover op involved acting as a sleeper agent within SHIELD itself. He has no idea how to play this.

(Thanks for _nothing_ , HYDRA.)

“Fitzsimmons?” Coulson asks, looking to them.

“Well, you see, sir,” Jemma starts, then trails off. It’s a little comforting that she’s clearly just as out of her depth as he is. (Also, he likes her accent, which is just…such a stupid thing to notice right now.)

“Ward is Jemma’s bloody soulmate!” Fitz interjects. He sounds angry, and Grant wonders at it.

“Huh,” Coulson says, blinking a little. “Can’t say I was expecting that.”

“Yes, well,” Jemma says. She tucks her hair behind her ear and clears her throat. “Shall Fitz and I pack our things, then?”

“What?” Fitz asks. “What do you mean, _pack our things_? Suddenly you’ve—this was your idea in the first place!”

“I haven’t changed my mind, Fitz,” Jemma sighs. “It’s against protocol for soulmates to be on a field team together, you know that.”

Fitz doesn’t have a chance to do more than open his mouth before Coulson interrupts.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” he says with a pleasant smile. “Why don’t you two finish unpacking while Agent Ward joins me in my office?”

Grant nods and follows him up the stairs. For some reason, he starts talking about his car on the way, and Grant keeps one ear open as he examines his new base. For a plane, it’s huge, but actually living in it will have it feeling cramped soon enough. Still, he’s slept in much, _much_ worse places—a certain cave in the Hindu Kush comes to mind—and he can definitely work with this. If he gets the chance, that is.

It’s up another staircase to Coulson’s office, and Grant falls into parade rest as Coulson leans back against his desk.

“So,” Coulson says, crossing his arms.

“Should I report back to the Hub for new orders, sir?” Grant asks, deciding to take the reverse psychology route again. It worked the first time, after all, and he really has no other play. Threats and violence, his usual methods of getting what he wants, won’t work against a superior officer. And seduction’s right out, for obvious reasons, even if his soulmate weren’t right downstairs.

(His _soulmate_. She’s _here_.)

“You’re not getting out of this that easy, Agent Ward,” Coulson says with a little smile. “You and Agent Simmons will both remain on the team.”

“Sir, protocol—” Grant begins.

“We’ll get an exemption,” Coulson dismisses. “My reasons for selecting you and Fitzsimmons for this team remain. You’re the best, and I want the best.”

This really isn’t the moment, but Grant can’t help noting the _Fitzsimmons_ —Coulson’s second use of it. He’s not entirely sure how he feels about it, about everyone automatically associating his soulmate with another man. Before, when Jemma was just a picture in a file, he thought the name smush thing was kind of tacky.

Now? Now it might be a little annoying.

But he has bigger issues at the moment. “Sir, I’m not sure how I feel about taking my soulmate into the field, especially if what Dr. Streiten said is true and she hasn’t passed her field test.”

“She hasn’t,” Coulson confirms. “But you’ll manage.”

Grant goes to protest again—can’t be seen giving in too easily—but Coulson’s raised hand stops him.

“Let me put it this way,” Coulson says. “Would you rather go into the field with your untrained soulmate, or let her go with someone else—someone you don’t know?”

Since that was pretty much Grant’s exact thought process, he really doesn’t have an argument against it. He lets out a slow breath.

“Understood, sir.”

Coulson smiles. “I knew you’d see it my way.”

Conversation apparently finished, Coulson leads the way back downstairs…

Where they promptly run into Melinda May.

It’s a short conversation—she passes Coulson some intel and warns that they’ll be taking off in five—and Grant doesn’t say a word until she’s gone. Mostly because there’s no real chance for it, but he’s not gonna deny there’s a little bit of apprehension involved.

“Is that…who I think it is?” he asks. It’s not hard to insert the appropriate amount of awe into his voice; Melinda May is a legend, and for very good reason.

He’ll be sharing space with not only his soulmate, but the Cavalry. He’s really going to have to stay on his toes on this op.

“She’s just the pilot,” Coulson says, and Grant gives him a dubious look.

He knows that May hasn’t done any field work since Bahrain, that she’s literally listed as _pilot/non-combatant_ on the team roster, but…come _on_.

“Melinda May,” he emphasizes, “is…just the pilot?” Saying it doesn’t make it sound any less ridiculous than hearing it did. “C’mon, sir. What game are you really playing?”

“Better stow your gear,” Coulson says, eyes flickering to the door behind Grant. That said, he heads back up the stairs as the engines start up.

Grant turns and enters the bunk. It’s small and cramped—but again, still miles above some of the other places he slept. Hell, it even has a mattress. The plane is beginning to move, so he stows his duffle in a small compartment near the door and takes a seat on the bed.

Jemma Simmons.

His soulmate is an entirely loyal SHIELD agent. It answers two questions that have burned at him for years: it doesn’t matter that he’s a SHIELD agent, because so is she. And he doesn’t have to wonder whether the HYDRA thing will bother her, because he knows. Every word HYDRA’s psych profile had to say about her moral conviction sits like a barb under his skin.

Still, there’s absolutely no reason she should ever know that HYDRA’s even a thing, let alone that he’s involved in it. HYDRA has hidden within SHIELD since its founding; it’s been a secret for decades—creeping up on a century, even—and what are the chances the massive conspiracy will suddenly break open after hiding so well for so long?

She’ll never know. HYDRA doesn’t matter.

 

 

 

There’s a TV hanging on the wall above the foot of his bed, and shortly after take-off, an alert pops up on it to inform him that they’ve reached cruising altitude. As soon as it does, he leaves his bunk.

He probably shouldn’t—he has plans to adjust and strategies to reconsider and not a lot of time to do it in—but he really can’t help it.

He _needs_ to see Jemma. It feels like there’s a rope wrapped around his heart, being tugged on every few seconds. Now that he knows who she is, he’s tethered to her, and that tether is stretched tight like a rubber band, about to snap if he doesn’t go see her _immediately_.

He’s heard the soul bond takes time to settle into place, but he hopes it’s been exaggerated. It’s not a pleasant sensation, so he’d like this done with quick.

He finds Jemma in the lab, with Fitz, back to arguing about the ‘night-night gun’ they were discussing when he first boarded the plane. And just like before, they don’t notice him when he enters. He’s really gonna have to work with them—or at least with Jemma—on situational awareness. He can’t have her out in the field if she doesn’t even notice when a highly trained operative is standing right behind her.

He knocks on a table to get their attention, and the argument cuts off abruptly as Jemma whirls to face him.

“Oh!” she exclaims. “Agent Ward! I—hello!”

“Hi,” he says. He gives her his best non-threatening smile and hopes it doesn’t come across as a grimace. He feels out of place in his own skin, like his muscles aren’t connected right. It’s unfortunately reminiscent of puberty, and he once again crosses his fingers that the soul bond settles quickly. “I was hoping we could talk.”

“Yes,” Jemma says. “That would be—I’d like that. Fitz, could you—?”

“Oh, fine,” Fitz grouses, picking up a bag from the corner. “I’ll just go set up my bunk, then.” He gives Grant a suspicious glare before frowning at Jemma. “Shout if you need me, would you?”

“I will,” Jemma promises.

They watch Fitz leave, and then turn back to each other. It’s a little awkward, honestly, and Grant, buoyed by the warmth that still fills him (this sensation is _not_ uncomfortable, not like the tether, but it is distracting) decides to risk speaking first.

“So,” he says. “Grant Ward. Nice to meet you.”

“Jemma Simmons,” she says, beaming. “The pleasure’s mine.”

They stand there for a moment, smiling at each other like idiots, before Jemma shakes her head.

“Here, would you like a seat?” she offers, indicating the table behind him.

Realizing she’ll probably be more comfortable without him looming over her, he takes the stool on the far side of the table, leaving the closer one for her. She smiles at him as she sits, and awkward cover or no awkward cover, it’s impossible not to return it.

“So, Grant,” she says, carefully, like she’s testing it.

“Jemma,” he replies, and weirdly, he really likes it. He likes the way her name feels in his mouth, the way it sounds when he says it.

(Seriously. He’s getting excited about _saying her name_. He has never in his life felt this ridiculous, not even that time he had to go undercover as a cybergoth.)

“I’m sorry,” Jemma says, laughing a little. “I just…I have no idea what to say. I really wasn’t expecting…”

“No,” he agrees when she trails off. “Me neither.” He hesitates for a moment, then says, “I get the feeling Fitz doesn’t like me very much. Are you two…?”

It’s definitely not the kind of question he should be opening with, but he can’t let it go unasked any longer. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she says yes—what he _can_ do—but at least he’ll know.

Luckily, that’s one problem he won’t have to deal with, because Jemma looks honestly surprised by the question. And once the surprise passes, she actually laughs.

“Oh, no,” she says. “Not at all. We’re strictly platonic—like siblings, really. He’s simply protective of me, that’s all.”

Well, that’s a relief. There’s no reason to expect she’s been celibate all this time—practice relationships are pretty standard for people who haven’t met their soulmate yet, and she’s a beautiful woman, besides—but there’s a difference between _knowing_ she’s probably dated other men and actually seeing it.

He’s never been the jealous type before, not when it comes to women, but he’s already got the feeling Jemma’s gonna be the exception to a lot of his rules. He’ll have to keep an eye on that.

For the moment, he nods. “Okay. Good to know.”

“Are you—I mean, do you have…?”

It’s comforting that she doesn’t seem any more capable of actually voicing the question than he was. It makes him feel a little less ridiculous.

“No,” he says. “There’s no one. I’ve never really had the time for anything more than…”

He trails off uncomfortably. One night stands and, even worse, his habit of sleeping with marks for information are probably not appropriate first-conversation material.

He is so out of his depth here. It’s unpleasantly reminiscent of the Academy, when—out of practice with people after five years in the woods—he never quite knew what to say to his classmates. Back then, he dealt by applying his classes to them.

But he doesn’t want to treat Jemma like a mark. She’s more important than that.

At least she doesn’t seem upset by his implication. “No, of course not.” She drums her fingers on the table. “You’re a busy man. A specialist.”

There’s a definite tone to her voice, but he doesn’t know her well enough to read it.

“Is that a problem?” he asks.

“No,” she says with a tiny smile. “They told me it was a possibility, actually, when my timer went blank. It’s just…a lot to take in.”

Huh.

“You didn’t know already?” he asks.

“Know what?” 

“They had to tell you it was a possibility?” he clarifies. “You didn’t know that when your timer went blank?”

“Oh, I had no idea,” she confirms. “It frightened me something awful, actually, when I looked down to see the numbers gone. I thought something terrible must have happened.”

He feels a little sick. Once he was told that his soulmate’s timer would go blank instead of red, he never really gave another thought to how _she’d_ be affected by his timer’s removal. He should have anticipated that it would be frightening for her.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“It’s all right,” she assures him. “I was already at the Academy at the time, and when I went to my advisor she knew right away what it meant. It was only a few moments of worry, that’s all.”

It’s cold comfort—only a few moments is still a few moments too many—but this tone, he _can_ read. She wants to move past this.

So he moves the conversation along.

“The Academy, really?” he asks, feigning surprise. “But you must’ve been, what, only sixteen?”

He also feels a little sick misleading her, but that’s something he’s gonna have to get used to. He’ll stick as close to his real personality as possible with her, but he _is_ on a deep cover mission, and he can’t abandon his cover just because he’s met his soulmate. He owes John more than that.

As much as he hates it, he needs to be Grant Ward, loyal Agent of SHIELD, for Jemma. And that Grant only knows her by reputation, which—although widespread and impressive—isn’t so detailed that the average specialist knows she’s SciTech’s youngest-ever graduate. He can’t be seen to know too much about her.

“Oh, yes,” she says, flushing prettily. “I was…well, not to sound arrogant, but I was something of a prodigy.”

He uses this opening and steers the conversation to her education. After a brief (and extremely edited) recounting of his own time in military school and the Ops Academy, he keeps her talking about university and SciTech and her two PhDs.

In addition to giving him a legitimate knowledge of her background, thereby reducing the risk of slipping (even _he_ has his off days, rare as they are), this also serves the purpose of getting her more comfortable with him. She’s obviously at least a little used to people reacting negatively—if not downright rudely—to her genius status; as he fails to insult, mock, or otherwise deride her, she relaxes a lot.

The fact that she’s gorgeous (yet simultaneously adorable; he has no idea how she can manage to be both at once, but she’s pulling it off really well) once she’s enough at ease to enthuse about her studies is just a bonus.

Halfway through her account of a prank one of her classmates at the Academy played, the intercom comes to life.

“Wheels down in five,” May announces. “Agent Ward to the briefing room.”

He sighs. “I guess that’s my cue.”

“I’m sorry.” Jemma bites her lip. “I’ve rather been monopolizing the conversation, haven’t I?”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “I like hearing about you. I’d like to hear more.”

“And I’d like to hear about you,” she says, smiling. “But I suppose it will have to wait.”

“It will,” he agrees, standing. “So, I’ll talk to you later then?”

“Later,” she says. It sounds like a promise.

He feels her eyes follow him out of the lab and can't deny that it gives him a thrill.

 

 

 

It turns out they’re in Los Angeles—not unexpected, as that’s where the unregistered Gifted he saw footage of in the Hub was spotted. As Coulson told him then, they’re on the trail of the Rising Tide.

In addition to their habit of spilling SHIELD’s secrets, the Rising Tide is also notable for being the group that interfered with his last op, nearly screwing things up beyond recovery. Grant was only pretending to think Coulson wanted him to cross them off—part of his socially awkward cover—but that doesn’t mean he’d be _against_ it. He really hates these guys.

The trace SHIELD got on a routing point leads them to a van parked in an alley behind a restaurant.

“Huh,” Coulson says, studying it. “I gotta say, for the amount of trouble the Rising Tide’s been giving us, I was expecting something a little more…”

“Secure?” Grant offers, scanning the van. No external cameras, no one in the driver’s seat for a quick getaway, and a close look through the window proves that the doors are unlocked.

Even putting the illegal activity aside, this is LA, for crying out loud. Who doesn’t lock their car in LA?

“Glamorous,” Coulson corrects, giving him a weird look. “How secure could a van parked in an alleyway be?”

Coulson’s got decades of field work under his belt, so there’s no reason he shouldn’t know the answer to that. Grant’s pretty sure he’s being mocked.

“More secure than this,” he says anyway.

“Uh huh,” Coulson says, unconvinced. “Well, whatever. You wanna do the honors?”

“Yes, sir,” he says, and accepts the literal black bag Coulson is holding out.

The actual act of black bagging the woman in the van is easy enough; she basically just sits there and lets him do it. Once he gets the bag over her head, though, she puts up a hell of a fight, kicking and screaming as he lifts her out of the van—and, when he covers her mouth through the bag, actually _biting_ him.

“I think she likes us,” Coulson says, cheerfully, as Grant forces her into the back of their SUV. (She doesn’t calm down any when he handcuffs her to the door.)

“I think I need a rabies shot,” Grant counters dryly, examining the bite on his palm. It’s an exaggeration—she didn’t quite break his skin—but considering the fact that she was biting him through a relatively thick layer of fabric, the indentation is surprisingly deep.

Coulson, after a quick glance at Grant’s hand, only smiles and claps him on the arm. “Walk it off.”

Being a dedicated professional with years of experience, Grant successfully quashes the urge to roll his eyes in response.

“Anyway, I’ll see what I can do about calming her down on the way back to the Bus,” Coulson says, and then nods back the way they came. “You follow in the van.”

Bringing it only makes sense—even with the brief glimpse he got of the inside before grabbing the woman, it obviously had way too much evidence inside to easily empty it out—but Grant hesitates at that division of duties. He needs Coulson alive, and there’s no telling how much of a threat this woman is.

“You sure, sir?” he asks.

“I think I can handle one restrained hacker, Ward,” Coulson replies, patiently amused. “Get going.”

He’d like to press it a little further—concerns aside, it’d be easy to steer this conversation to Coulson’s recovery—but Coulson’s tone isn’t one the guy Grant’s pretending to be would argue with.

“Yes, sir,” he says, and—with one last deliberate look of worry at their prisoner—doubles back the way they came.

 

 

 

Back at the Bus, they take the woman straight into interrogation. The Bus’ interrogation room is apparently nicknamed ‘the Cage,’ which isn’t exactly gonna win it any points for originality, but that’s typical for SHIELD. In any case, their prisoner definitely flinches when Coulson makes a point of telling the passing May that they’re headed for the Cage, so as an intimidation tactic, it works.

Grant hangs back for a second after that exchange, because May isn’t the only one passing. She’s followed by Jemma and Fitz, and while the sight of his soulmate does a lot to ease the awful tension that’s settled into his spine during his time away from her, the fact that she and Fitz are both bearing several heavy black cases and clearly preparing to leave dampens the effect.

“Hey,” he says, snagging the largest case from its precarious position under Jemma’s left arm. “Going somewhere?”

She looks between him and the case for a second, expression somewhere between exasperation and appreciation, and he raises his eyebrows at her. They’re gonna have to learn each other’s boundaries and the weird situation they’re in—newly acquainted soulmates working on the same team—means that it’s destined to be an even more delicate process than it would otherwise be (especially since Grant needs to walk a thin line between maintaining his cover and being himself for his soulmate), but this is one thing he’s not budging on.

He’s not ashamed to admit that he’s capable of being a complete dick, but standing by while his tiny soulmate struggles with equipment that has to weigh at least half as much as she does? Come on.

Jemma sighs. “Thank you, and yes. We’re going to investigate the explosion site.”

Grant frowns as he falls into step with her. He knows that needs to be done as quickly as possible—it’s already been left longer than it should—but he also knows that Coulson wants him in interrogation. Which means Jemma’s going out into the field for the first time without him.

Theoretically, there’s no reason she should be in danger. The site is abandoned and the bomb squad has already gone through it, ruling out the risk of further explosions. On top of that, if anything goes wrong, she’ll have the freaking Cavalry at hand to protect her. She’ll be fine—and putting up a fuss about a simple field trip like this won’t speak well to his ability to handle being on a team with his soulmate. It could easily see their exemption revoked and him reassigned.

He has to let her go.

That doesn’t mean he has to like it.

“Be careful,” he says, as they load their respective cases into the back of the SUV.

“Don’t worry,” Jemma says, patting his arm fondly. She looks adorably excited, and he’s caught between the equally inappropriate urges to hug her and to drag her back up the ramp and handcuff her to her lab bench. “We’ll be just fine!”

He manages to drum up a smile for her, wishes her and Fitz luck, and then forces himself to return to the Bus before he can do anything stupid. May gives him an unreadable look—annoyed? sympathetic? uncaring?—as he passes.

Coulson is waiting for him outside the Cage with the strangely subdued prisoner, and, thankfully, doesn’t comment on the delay. He just passes her over and holds the door open for Grant to lead her inside.

The interrogation is…well, it’s fucking worrying, is what it is. The hacker’s name is Skye, and she just _happens_ to be on the trail of Centipede. And not only is she on its trail, she casually reveals its existence to Coulson.

Just like that, Grant’s mission becomes a hundred times more complicated. The operation to save John’s life has managed to remain secret for more than _twenty_ _years_ , and now, with a careless word from some nobody, it’s on SHIELD’s radar.

Fuck.

After that happy bit of intel, the interrogation takes an unusual turn. Skye, in addition to being a ‘hacktivist,’ is the anti-establishment type, and pretty clearly uninterested in cooperating with SHIELD. Coulson, in turn, decides against breaking out the thumbscrews, and instead pretends to dose Grant with truth serum.

He breaks out a basic and exaggerated overshare—gleefully prodded along by Skye—gets in a dig or two at Coulson, and then pretends to pass out so that Skye, newly convinced of Coulson’s okay-ness, can go cooperate.

It’s essentially a highly advanced version of good cop/bad cop, and once Skye’s gone, Grant has to take a minute to laugh over how easy it was.

He’ll give Coulson this: the guy may basically _live_ outside of the box, but it really, really works for him.

 

 

 

Even before the door opens to reveal her, he knows it’s Jemma coming to get him. The bond’s been stretched uncomfortably tight in his chest for hours, tugging at random intervals and leaving him almost winded. It relaxed a bit when (he presumes) she returned from the field, but as she approaches the Cage, it finally slackens its grip on his heart.

Not a fun sensation, and if the way Jemma’s eyes close in clear relief when she opens the door is any indication, she’s in agreement with him there.

“Well,” she says, a bit dryly, “that was unpleasant.”

“No kidding.” He pushes away from the table, snagging his discarded suit jacket from the back of his chair as he stands. “But other than the separation, how was your first trip into the field?”

“Exciting!” is her cheerful reply. “The explosion site was a secret lab. We found all sorts of evidence.”

She says _evidence_ in such a wise, official tone that he’s once again hit with an overwhelming urge to hug her. She’s just…really adorable. Adorable and gorgeous and all his, and it might be a little early to call it, but he’s leaning towards fate being very, very kind to him in the soulmate lottery.

She’s also very _tiny_ , as he’s reminded by the way she tips her head back to look at him when he joins her at the door.

“And how was your afternoon?” she asks, darting a little glance around the Cage. “What are you doing in here, anyway?”

He nudges her gently, a silent request for her to step back so he can exit and close the door. “Have you met Skye?”

“Yes.”

“We needed her intel and she wasn’t feeling very cooperative,” he says, unable to help a smile in response to her confused frown. “So Coulson dosed me with some truth serum to gain her trust.”

“But truth serum doesn’t…” She pauses. “Oh. I see. That was very tricky of you both, wasn’t it?”

“Whatever works, right?” Very aware of the silence around them, he leans forward (privately delighting in the way Jemma doesn’t retreat at the semi-accidental invasion of her space) to get a better look down the hall towards the briefing room. From what he can see across the lounge, it’s empty. “Where is everyone?”

Well, he knows they’re not in the Cage, so there’s no reason to hang around outside of it, is there? He wonders if he has time to change out of his suit before they do…whatever they’re gonna do next. If there was enough evidence left at the Centipede lab to lead the team back into the field (and that’s a whole other problem, but not one he can afford to worry about right now), he’d rather be wearing something he can move better in.

“Agent May took Skye back to where you fetched her from,” Jemma reports, falling into step with him towards the lounge. “She’s providing some audio to accompany visual footage we gathered at the secret lab, but it’s apparently encrypted—an encryption coupled to her GPS. In the meantime, Fitz is going to digitally reconstruct the explosion; he and Agent Coulson are down in the lab.”  

They probably have some time, then. Excellent.

“And you?” he asks. 

“Oh, I have plenty to keep me busy,” she says, pleased. “We picked up some interesting readings at the explosion site, and there’s a particular piece of evidence—I can’t be more specific than that, I’m afraid, as it’s all burnt to a crisp—that I want a closer look at.”

“Sounds like fun,” he guesses, going more from her tone than her words, which are almost suspiciously vague. That’s probably his paranoia talking, though.

“It will be,” she confirms, and then bites her lip. “Um. I’m not sure what there is for you to do, though?”

“Nothing, probably,” he admits easily. “My part comes after yours is done, once we’ve got a solid lead on…whatever this is.”

What he’s gonna _do_ once they’ve got that lead is another matter: one too-good hacker and a single response team aren’t gonna crack John’s whole operation open, not when he’s gone to so much trouble to disguise it, but they _can_ cause him some serious trouble. It puts Grant in an awkward position.

That’s for later, though.

“For now,” he says, “why don’t you go on to the lab? I’m gonna change; if I _do_ have a part to play in this, I don’t wanna do it in a suit.”

Her eyes dip down to sweep him briefly—and appreciatively—then snap back to his.

“Right,” she says, a little too loudly. She’s looking kind of mortified, and he’s impressed by how flattering an expression it is, on her. “I’ll…leave you to that, then.”

That said, she all but flees from the lounge. In deference to her clear embarrassment, Grant doesn’t laugh until he’s positive she’s out of earshot.

Yeah. He definitely lucked out with her.

 

 

 

Things happen fast after that. His soulmate, brilliant biochemist that she is, easily concludes that the _evidence_ she found in the lab—which turns out to be a portion of a Centipede device that she cuts into, displaying an interesting (and adorable) level of glee when the serum starts dripping out of it—is an attempt at a super soldier serum. Add in Fitz’s little visual reconstruction of the explosion plus Skye’s audio, and just like that, the team’s got all the most pertinent details of John’s operation.

They don’t know _everything_ , but they know a lot: that Centipede is trying to make super soldiers, that the serum fed through the intravenous filters in the Centipede device is unstable, and that the Centipede soldiers are given to exploding thanks to the Extremis in the serum. It’s not enough to lead them to John; just a hell of a lot more than Grant’s comfortable with.

He somehow manages to contain the urge to bang his head against the wall, but only just.

Seriously, what are the odds? Nearly twenty-five years of secrecy, and the Centipede program gets revealed on the first day of a team Grant just _happens_ to be on? Either his luck is really fucking terrible, like Greek mythology levels of bad, or there’s something else at work here.

If this is another one of John’s games…

But there’s no time to dwell on it. Mike Peterson, the guy they came to LA looking for in the first place, has the Centipede serum in his system, and Jemma figures out pretty quick that he’ll be exploding soon. The options she presents to Coulson are to either get Peterson away from anyone he might hurt when he explodes, or put a bullet in his brain to stop him exploding at all.

“We need to come up with a third option,” Coulson says to that. It’s the same tone he used to ask what Grant was doing when he pulled the sniper rifle he’s currently checking over out of the Bus’ munitions closet ten minutes ago. “One that doesn’t involve Mike’s son losing a father.”

“We have a couple of hours at most,” Jemma protests. “There’s no way that we could—”

Coulson, it turns out, doesn’t like that answer. Which is something he expresses to Jemma by raising his voice.

The bond in Grant’s chest—mercifully loose, thanks to Jemma’s proximity—goes sharp and cold, and it’s a genuine struggle to remain in place as he’s hit with a sudden surge of protective instincts. It’s not hard to fight them back—keeping himself under control is a vital part of his job—but it’s a concern that it’s even necessary. Part of him is _screaming_ to eliminate the threat to his soulmate, and he’s a trained killer; Coulson could be dead in seconds.

And this just because Coulson snapped at her. Grant has no idea what he’s gonna do when Jemma’s in actual danger (an unfortunate inevitability on a field team), but he hopes—for all their sakes—that it doesn’t happen until _after_ the bond is settled.

This is why soulmates aren’t allowed to go into the field together.

There’s no chance to dwell on it, though. No sooner has Coulson dismissed Jemma and Fitz with orders to find a non-lethal way of dealing with Peterson than May calls to report that he’s kidnapped Skye.

She doesn’t sound happy, and no surprise—the Cavalry’s not used to getting her ass kicked, and even though she doesn’t _say_ it, it’s obvious that’s what happened. How else could Peterson have grabbed Skye right from under her nose?

But May’s in no mood to discuss _that_. “Right now, we need to figure out where they went.”

“LA’s a big city,” Grant points out. “Our chances of finding them before Peterson blows—”

“Aren’t good,” Coulson interrupts. “Fortunately, I doubt we’ll have to.” He drums his fingers on the holocom, eyes fixed on the screen. “He took Skye for a reason.”

“The most likely reason being her computer skills,” Grant realizes. “And since she’s already hacked us once…”

“You think she’ll reach out to _us_ for help?” May asks. It might just be the speaker phone’s distortion, but she sounds almost amused.

“I do,” Coulson confirms.

“And if she doesn’t?” Grant asks. “If they’re in a public place when Peterson detonates…” He shakes his head. “You’re betting a lot of lives on a cyberterrorist, sir.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Coulson says, and then spoils his grave tone with a little smile. “And I think she prefers hacktivist.”

Grant’s saved from the need to figure out a respectful reply to that when a security alert pops up on the holocom. Their channel—supposedly secured with state-of-the-art tech—is being hacked.

“Huh.” Coulson blinks. “That was faster than I was expecting.”

Grant’s no comms agent, but he has the training to dig into a security breach like this. On the surface, it just looks like white noise—kind of like how HYDRA communicates, actually—but underneath it…

“Longitude and latitude,” he reports, and plugs the numbers into the GPS. “Specifically, of Union Station.”

“Go,” Coulson orders. “I’m right behind you.”

Grant grabs his jacket and the sniper rifle and makes for the stairs, barely catching Coulson’s “Did you get that, May?” as he goes. Jemma and Fitz are in the lab, presumably working on a non-lethal way to deal with Peterson, but there’s no time to chat. He loads the rifle into the SUV, hits the button to lower the ramp, and gets into the driver’s seat just as Coulson is crossing through the lab.

Conveniently, they’re not far from Union Station. It’s not even a ten minute drive, and it’d be even faster if not for the LA traffic. Irritating as all the horrible drivers are, though, Grant’s grateful for the distraction.

He’s a little conflicted.

There’s no denying that it’s better for him and John if Peterson dies. They’ve kept as much distance between themselves and the lower ranks of Centipede as possible, but no operation is perfect, and there’s no telling what Peterson might have picked up on while serving as a test subject. That he’s explosive and currently parked in a highly populated area is perfect justification for taking him out; as things stand, Grant won’t even get a slap on the wrist for crossing him off.

On the other hand…

He’s familiar enough with Jemma’s psych profile to know she’ll take it badly if a man she’s been charged with saving dies. It won’t matter that she got the order less than an hour ago or that thousands of other lives will be saved in the process; Peterson’s death will weigh on her.

It’s exactly the kind of emotional damage he’s always promised himself _not_ to do to his soulmate, and inflicting it on their very first day…

There’s no good way forward and no time to decide.

“There,” Coulson says as they pull up in front of Union Station, along with a whole fleet of police cars. Skye’s van is parked right next to the door.

It’s mid-morning on a weekday and Union Station is bustling. Grant knows Coulson’s reputation—and, even if he hadn’t, would’ve picked up on the reality of it after the way he snapped at Jemma—but he’s still a little astonished when, rather than a weapon, Coulson grabs a megaphone before exiting the SUV.

He’s _seriously_ gonna try negotiating with a guy that’s due to explode any minute?

“Look at this place,” Grant says. “You’re gonna risk thousands of lives for some nobody?”

The answer is yes, not that Coulson’s “nobody’s nobody” attitude does them any good. He barely makes it four sentences into his pitch before Peterson hurls the van door at them. They both dodge in time, but it’s an effective distraction, and Peterson disappears into Union Station with Skye and a little boy—presumably his son—before they can stop him.

Grant and Coulson give chase, obviously, but Peterson’s already lost in the crowd.

“Find them,” Coulson orders, and Grant slips away with a nod.

He circles around the edge of the lobby, scanning the crush of people for any sign of Peterson or Skye. It seems hopeless until the sound of a fight reaches him—and at the same time, he spots the sudden space being made near some benches.

It’s Peterson, facing off against a handful of gang bangers, for some reason. Grant doesn’t know why the guy would waste his time with them when he’s got SHIELD on his tail, but he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He cuts through the crowd of gawkers and reaches Peterson— _just_ Peterson, he notes; there’s no sign of Skye or the kid—right as he sends his last opponent flying.

Unfortunately, Grant doesn’t fare much better. Peterson isn’t moved by the news that he’s gonna explode, and while Grant doesn’t get hurled across the station, he _does_ get slammed to the ground after breaking a glass display case with his back.

He’s definitely gonna be feeling that one tomorrow.

From his position on the ground, he can’t see exactly where Peterson disappears to—but he _does_ see the police officer who fires a shotgun across the station.

“You told them to hold fire,” he says, a little dumbly, as Coulson approaches to help him to his feet. In his defense, he’s still winded from hitting the floor and also a little rattled by just how much _stronger_ than him Peterson was.

But there’s no excuse for the fact that it takes Coulson saying, “I don’t think that’s us” for him to realize what’s going on here.

Someone in Centipede—probably not John; this isn’t his style—is trying to tie up the loose end Peterson represents.

It’s not a bad plan (and having the guy dress like a cop is a nice touch), but somehow Grant doesn’t see it working out…and it doesn’t.

He’s just gotten set up on the upper level with his rifle when Peterson comes flying over the edge of the mezzanine. He falls all the way to ground level, crashes through the roof of a ticket booth…and then stands right up, climbing out of the rubble like it’s nothing.

Coulson—who’s standing barely twenty feet from where Peterson fell—responds by putting his gun on the floor.

“For fuck’s sake,” Grant mutters, centering his aim on Peterson. He knows Coulson wants to save him, but there’s taking a chance on saving someone and there’s being _stupid_ , and Coulson’s definitely falling in the latter category right now.

Grant can’t learn the secret of Coulson’s survival if the guy gets himself killed on their _first day_. At this rate, he’s not gonna have a choice; he’ll _have_ to kill Peterson just to save Coulson.

And even putting aside the hurt that’ll do to Jemma (which he _can’t_ put aside, because she’s his soulmate and he’s _not supposed to hurt her_ ), that’s not likely to play well with Coulson himself. His tone when he ordered Grant to only take this shot if he has to was pretty sharp; Grant’s got the feeling that even if he doesn’t get in trouble with SHIELD for crossing Peterson off, it’ll put him in Coulson’s bad books.

That’s not a place he can afford to be. Not when his _entire mission_ depends on gaining Coulson’s trust.

It’s the very definition of being caught between a rock and a hard place, and he’s got no idea what to do.

As such, he’s beyond relieved when—halfway through Peterson’s impassioned speech about heroes and giants—Fitz runs up behind him, bearing the ‘night-night gun’ he and Jemma were bickering about earlier.

“Dendrotoxin,” Fitz pants, shoving the gun into Grant’s hands. “Non-lethal. Shouldn’t kill him.”

“Shouldn’t?” Grant echoes. “That’s comforting.”

He’s already setting the sniper rifle aside, though. He’ll take a chance of Peterson surviving over the certainty of killing him—both for the sake of Coulson trusting him _and_ for Jemma. He knows she’s here—can guess from Fitz’s presence and, more importantly, feel it in the loosened tether around his heart—and he’d rather she not see him make a lethal shot.

He won’t be able to avoid it forever, of course—that’s just not the nature of his work. But he doesn’t need her psych profiles to know how she’s likely to react to seeing someone killed right in front of her, so he’ll put it off for as long as physically possible.

“We didn’t exactly have time to test it,” Fitz says defensively. He’s bent double, hands resting on his knees as he struggles to catch his breath.

“Yeah, well,” Grant says, and lines up his shot, “here’s hoping.”

There’s no more time to debate or dither; Peterson’s skin is literally _glowing_. He’s obviously about to blow.

Grant pulls the trigger, and down Peterson goes.

Jemma runs out of the crowd before he even hits the floor; in seconds, she’s kneeling beside him, and after a very tense few seconds, she sits back on her heels. Even from here, the relieved smile on her face is clear.

Peterson’s not dead. Grant’s kept Coulson’s trust and avoided hurting—or scaring and/or scarring—his soulmate, but he’s left open the possibility that Peterson might be able to reveal some of Centipede’s secrets.

All in all, this is…really not what he was hoping for from this team’s inaugural mission.

 

 

 

Still, back on the Bus hours later, he feels something approaching contentment as he has dinner with Jemma and Fitz. He’d be happier if Fitz had gone with Coulson and left him alone with Jemma, obviously, but this is good enough. Having anything with Jemma will necessitate getting used to Fitz anyway. Now’s as good a time as any to get a start on that.

In this moment—sitting next to his soulmate, so close that their shoulders brush every time he picks up his beer—absolutely nothing can bring him down. Not sharing Jemma’s attention with another man, not writing his report on the Union Station incident, not even having to figure out how to justify using an untested weapon on a ticking time bomb. None of it can touch him, not when _he_ can touch _Jemma_.

…His life being what it is, of course, an alert pops up on his laptop as soon as he has that thought.

“What is it?” Jemma asks, leaning forward for a better view of the screen.

Grant is momentarily distracted by having her warmth pressed all along his side and her hair brushing his arm, but he’s a highly trained operative, so it only takes a second—or ten—to shake it off. He scans the report quickly.

“New assignment,” he says, with a sinking kind of feeling. “An 084.”

An 084 is, at least, highly unlikely to have anything to do with Centipede, which’ll be a major improvement. On the other hand, it’s also highly _likely_ to introduce an element of serious danger to the team.

The last time SHIELD found an 084, a small town in New Mexico got flattened—and that was a _happy_ ending, as far as 084s go. There’s a worrying history there, to say the least.

“Really?” Fitz asks, leaning over his other shoulder. If his tone’s any indication, he doesn’t find the prospect of an 084 worrying at all—more like an unexpected Christmas present. “Are they _sure_?”

“No,” Grant says—and that’s a relief. “They want us to confirm. Go tell May we’re headed for Peru.”

He uses the excuse of pulling his phone from his pocket to pretend not to see the silent but very intense exchange of facial expressions that follows his order. Fitz is obviously reluctant, but Jemma is just as obviously insistent, and after a second, Fitz scowls and heads for the cockpit.

It’s an effort to keep a smile off his face as he calls Coulson and passes on the news.

“Peru,” Jemma muses once he hangs up. “That’s a long flight.”

“It is,” Grant agrees. The Bus is _capable_ of high-speed flight, but pushing a plane this size to its limits wastes a lot of fuel. With the situation in Peru holding at non-urgent, May’s likely to take it easy. “About eight hours.”

“Well.” There’s a playful smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I’d say that’s enough time for a good talk, wouldn’t you?”

Her smile might be playful, but her tone is hopeful. It’s good to know that she’s just as eager as he is to spend time together—it’s encouraging for their future relationship _and_ it makes him feel a little less pathetic that his heart actually _skipped a fucking beat_ at the sight of her smile.

Only a little, though.

“Absolutely,” he says, and tips his head towards the bar. “Buy you a drink?”

Her smile widens into a grin, and Grant gets hit—hard—with the sudden urge to kiss her. He pushes it aside, of course (it’s way too soon for that), but now that he’s had it his head is full of thoughts about the shape of her mouth and the curve of her jaw and what she might taste like.

“I’d like that,” she says, and accepts the hand he offers.

His whole body buzzes as the simple skin contact leaves the soul bond thrumming. It’s a rush like nothing he’s ever felt, and it makes all those thoughts about kissing her that much harder to ignore.

But he can’t be hasty here. This is too important— _Jemma_ is too important—to risk ruining through impatience. So he puts a lid on thoughts of kissing (and of more than kissing) and contents himself with tangling their fingers for the very short walk to the bar.

Jemma keeps smiling. That’s a rush, too.


End file.
